Where do we go when we die? A short story about imaginary friends, growing up, and letting go. — By the time August arrives, I can feel summer starting to wane. A couple Augusts ago, I wrote the following story, which was first published on my Substack newsletter. At the time, I was tired of writing out of personal experience and wanted to push boundaries and get inside the…

A list for researchers and bibliophiles — Britannica’s The Great Ideas Today was a series of annual supplements to their Great Books of the Western World collection. You can sometimes find these in used bookshops, and they are worth browsing. As a pet project, I have been transcribing bibliographies from the subject overview articles. They contain plenty…

A 100 word story — Here’s a new “drabble” — a 100 word micro fiction about a tree. In East Texas a pine tree stands by itself in what appears to be a meadow. It is surrounded by stumps. Why it survived the tree can’t say. Two crows circle above, conversing about what, we can’t…

As we get older, the disappointments and lost opportunities can pile up like ruins of a lost colony. Here’s a poem about that. — Nobody was encouraging. They walked away left crushed deposits, crevasses and storms, graffiti shadows on conglomerate walls. Tributes won’t be paid. Vacant days return like dog eared pages. You keep rereading love letters in washed out ink. How many blind decades did you spend feeling for something in fog only to…